August 30, 2012

President Obama as an existential threat to American as we know it?

Road trips to North Dakota have always presented me with an existential threat – i.e., driving straight through for 24 hours creates a significant risk of falling asleep at the wheel. Recently, however, I have discovered a surprising way to reduce that risk – conservative talk radio. The talk-show hosts are interesting and provocative. Although I almost never find the time to listen to the radio during a typical day, finding the time is easy during a road trip to North Dakota. Today, as I drove to ND, I had the opportunity to listen to Laura Ingraham in the morning, Rush at lunch, Sean in the afternoon, and The Great One during dinner.

As usual, The Great One was the most interesting. In addition to providing a plethora of quotes from his favorite politician, Ronald Reagan, Mark Levin asserted that President Obama was an existential threat to American as we know it. In support of this assertion, Levin quoted Obama as saying shortly before his 2008 election, “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”

Technically, I suppose that someone who wants to fundamentally transform something arguably wants to destroy it. Indeed, that is what the Democrats say about Paul Ryan’s plan to reform Medicare – i.e., they charge that Ryan wants to destroy Medicare as we know it. If this were a formal debate, Ryan would counter that Medicare as we know it is unsustainable and that wanting to keep Medicare as it is would be foolhardy. But this isn’t a formal debate, so Ryan and the Republicans find themselves playing defense.

Getting back to the issue of whether President Obama is an existential threat to America as we know it, what do I think?

I have heard countless conservatives, including Paul Ryan in his acceptance speech last night, argue that this is a watershed election and that if President Obama is re-elected, America will be condemned to follow in a path made by France and possibly even Greece. But I recall liberals in the past warning of dire consequences if Bush-43 were elected (or re-elected), yet none of those dire things happening.

My judgment is that conservatives are currently over-reacting to the danger of Obama’s re-election, just as liberals previously over-reacted to the danger of Bush-43 being re-elected, because pundits often underestimate the resiliency of people. Yes, a re-elected Obama would push America to act more like a European welfare state, but as British P.M. Margaret Thatcher pointed out, such a government eventually runs out of other people’s money to spend. At that point, the voters will see the error of their way and shift back toward freedom over dependency.

The people are resilient and the system is designed for self-correction. As they say, keep working on it, and things will work out, even with another Obama term.